Pendulum Swings
As you begin your Small Group this week … “Choose your top 3 … ?”
1. … types of weather?
2. … ways to celebrate New Year’s Eve?
3. … ways you like to spend time with God?

1. LEARN TOGETHER: Deuteronomy 6:4-9
Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.
Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with
all your soul and with all your strength.
These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.
Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.
Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.
Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

2. READ: Deuteronomy 5:6-21:
Which of the 10 commandments is most significant to you? Discuss how these commandments form the foundation of the covenant God made with his people.

3. READ: Matthew 22:34-40:
On what He calls the two greatest commandments, Jesus states that all the law and the
prophets hang on these; discuss the significance of this statement to the ones who asked it – i.e., the Pharisees. How does/might this apply to us today?

4. Today’s sermon noted that the meaning has been ‘mis-defined’ as to what it is to love
God with all your heart … mind … soul … strength. In what ways have you, or have heard others, ‘mis-defined’ this?

5. READ: Luke 10:25-37 (The parable of the Good Samaritan)
Discuss the significance of this response of Jesus to the question asked. What is the significance of Jesus’ use of the 3 characters? i.e., that being a priest, a Levite and a Samaritan. Why would He choose these three?

6. It was mentioned that one way to grow in our love for God is to be more aware of our sins, and of how God has forgiven us. As the children of Israel needed to constantly remember that God had delivered them from Egypt, we need to constantly remember how He has forgiven us of our sins. Discuss the ways that you have found which help you remember His forgiveness.

7. CLOSE by continuing to work together on memorizing Deuteronomy 6:4-9.